House Austere Howl
Early History Austere Howl had its origins in Rome with the rise of Constantine I who was Silver Fang kin and beloved to the tribe. Conflicts with vampires over Rome itself drove the Silver Fangs out of Rome and then Italy all together. Austere Howl found a new homeland for themselves and those other Garou who swore fealty to them in the fertile British Isles. The Roman-born quickly seized power in their new territory with three kinfolk brothers who emerged into human legend: Constans, Ambrosius Aurelianus and Uther Pendragon the father of Arthur. The Garou generally left the human politics and wars to kinfolk and focussed instead on combatting dealing with territory disputes with the fey, the Fianna, the Get of Fenris, the White Howlers/Black Spiral Dancers and even other Silver Fangs-- those of House Winter Snow who did not welcome their Roman cousins with anything but hostility and constant battle for dominancy. When House Winter Snow collapsed in the 17th century because of King Aaron Emberstone's mishandling of the Silver Crown, a young Lucas Constantine I of Austere Howl rallied the Silver Fangs of Britain to him and forged a fragile peace with the Fianna and Get of Fenris, enabling all three tribes to drive the Black Spirals and their allies backwards and reclaim several lost caerns. Lucas I was a Renewalist, one of the first. He was instrumental in working with more moderate tribes such as the Children of Gaia and the Glass Walkers to more equatably divide caerns and caern leadership in Great Britain that went hand-in-hand with the cultural and political revolutions seizing Great Britain at this time. The Constantine dynasty managed to keep power and influence in England, however, until the mid 1990s. 1970s-1995: Era of Jonathan Constantine Jonathan Constantine, called "Falcon's Mate" was the son of King Byron I and his half-sister consort, Annabelle Mayfield. He was one of two children born of this union. His father Byron fell into madness while Jonathan was just a teenager, forcing an 18 year old Jonathan, only a fostern at the time, to challenge and kill him. Jonathan's pack, "Total Eclipse" was led by Jonathan himself and included Aleister Miller a Bone Gnawer theurge, Robin Mallory a Fianna Galliard and three ahrouns: Sean Seamus Carter of the Fianna, Marcus Storm Veluchi of the Shadow Lords and lupus-born Elizabeth Nimblefoot of the Get of Fenris. Jonathan himself never married, but had several children with Silver Fang kinfolk, including Mary Winston. He was also a Renewalist and deeply at odds with Jacob Morningkill and many leaders of the other six Silver Fang Houses. His tolerance for kinfolk mages, Fera and metis within his territory may have been ultimately his undoing. In 1995 he was assassinated and there began a three year schism that shattered the House. The Schism Jonathan Constantine died in 1995 under circumstances that are still debated among the Silver Fangs both within and outside of the House. He was only 43 years old and still a very active and vibrant young man. The central sept outside of London, "Cambridge Court" was attacked by a infernalist sorcerer in league with the Black Spiral Dancers. A battle raged for hours but left a number of Garou dead, including the king, and several prominant kinfolk kidnapped- including Jonathan's designated heir. Several very different Silver Fang athros attempted to seize the throne, plunging the great House into a second and in some ways even more traumatic crisis as Austere House factionalized and fell upon each other. An "usurper" king rose and fell within 12 months and a significant number of kinfolk and retainers simply fled England all together, taking sanctuary with distant kinsman in the United States. Queen Mary In 1997, Jonathan's young daughter, Mary, a young Scottish Silver Fang ahroun came to power. Inexperienced but virtuous, she attempted to rally the Silver Fang of other Houses to her aid and restore Austere Howl to its greatness. For six years, she and her allies fought to prove that Austere Howl had not Fallen. Unfortunately, House Gleaming Eye was able to prove that there were in fact infernalists among Austere Howl's kinfolk -- and that another sorcerer known as "Lucifer Tanaka" who was responsible for violating several caerns besides Cambridge Court was Mary's own uncle. Lucifer and his followers were sacrificing kinfolk of other tribes to an entity called "Red Jack"-- and that there were members of Austere Howl secretly protecting him and his cult behind Mary's back. Worst of all, Mary's own kinfolk lover, Jeremiah Sinclair, was implicated as part of the cult and caught initiating their young son Ben in some kind of twisted blood ritual by a mixed pack of Get of Fenris, Fianna and Glasswalkers in early 2002. Mary, full of despair, tried to banish or kill everyone within the House that had conspired with the Wyrm but the Silver Fang elders of House Gleaming Eye had had enough. They declared a pogrom upon Austere Howl with the support of the other British tribes. They seized all of Austere Howl's holdings in England and Wales, capturing their caerns and declaring they would examine every Garou and every kinfolk with blood lineage or oaths of service to House Austere for taint. Almost everyone associated with Austere Howl who fell into Gleaming Eye's hand was either executed or forced to renounce all ties, stripped of all rank and resource, and re-sworn into Gleaming Eye. Typically, this has only been very young Garou or kinfolk still capable of breeding-- everyone else has been declared icthya and destroyed. Mary herself and her retinue were given temporary sanctuary in 2003 with the Fianna of Dublin. However, "Red Jack" began to manifest there and attacked several caerns. The Fianna and others began to believe that Mary was either cursed- or that Calvin de Provence, the Belgium king of Gleaming Eye had been right all along and Mary was as much a part of the cult as her consort. She managed to escape before the Fianna turned her over to him and then dissapeared completely. Some Garou elders think she is innocent and believe she hides in some umbral realm, gathering forces to prove her innocence and defeat "Red Jack" and those that serve him. Others think she's gone to Cawdor and dwells in the great hive that guards the Black Labryinth, a thrall to her new Malfean masters.